CIRCUMSTANCES OF LOSSAt dawn on 20 December 1942, a platoon from Company A, 2nd Marines left friendly lines for a combat patrol. They made contact that morning, moved a few hundred yards farther, and then ran into heavier resistance at around 1530 hours. Machine gun fire killed one Marine and wounded a corpsman who went to his aid.

PFC William V. Wilkins, an intelligence specialist attached to the patrol, was pinned down by a Japanese machine gun when the patrol was forced to withdraw. He was reported as missing in action, and never returned to his company. Wilkins was declared dead on 21 December 1943.

Biography:
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Patrolling on the Canal was a nerve-racking experience. The jungle afforded the Japs perfect cover and made it impossible for the patrol to move silently enough to achieve surprise. As a result the first thing that alerted you to the presence of the enemy was the killing or wounding of one or more of your men in the point of the patrol. Then you had a helova time getting the wounded or dead out from under the muzzles of the gunners who shot them. Two of my friends… were members of a patrol that ran in to a Jap ambush manned with Nambu light machine guns. Instantly, four of the men were hit and down. When the corpsman [Anderson] went to their aid he was mortally wounded. Two of the downed Marines [Wilkins and Sauer] were dead…. The patrol’s efforts to recover the three bodies were repulsed. I was doubly chagrined at this happening because it was my platoon’s corpsman that died that day. He had been ‘borrowed’ to fill in for [another] corpsman, who was ill.